PepsiCo adopts innovative ways for digital marketing in India

GURGAON: Learning from mistakes made globally in digital marketing, food and beverage major PepsiCo is adopting innovative methods in India to tap the potential of social media for building brand equity and increase sales.

"India is a unique place and market. There have been a lot of mistakes made around the world in terms of digital marketing. India does not have to make the same mistakes," PepsiCo Beverages (Global Head Digital) Shiv Singh told PTI at the Ad Tech summit on digital marketing here.

Asked how differently the company will be approaching the Indian market when it comes to tapping the potential of the digital media, he said: "We should not look at digital medium strictly from the lens of advertising spends, but approach it in an innovative manner."

Citing the example of how the firm used Facebook during the cricket World Cup last year, he said: "Pepsi's Facebook campaign was the most recognised brands during the event. We also got an award from FB on that. So we are using social media in a big way here for building brand equity."

It is extremely important for brands to have a direct relationship with their consumers and not simply outsource it to an agency alone, he added.

"Digital media should be used for real time marketing and we use this medium both for brand building and generating sales," he said.

Singh said PepsiCo uses multiple agencies to handle digital media account for different brands and products in India.

Elaborating the potential of the digital media for marketing, he said: "Within the digital domain, mobile marketing is going to play a very big role and will become extremely bigger than the conventional web."

When asked about the total spends of PepsiCo on digital media across the world and in India he said: "It varies dramatically from markets to markets. In case of India, the spends are larger than some markets and lesser than some others but we spend in India both to drive sales and build distribution."